The Charge

Opening Statement

Having reviewed the last three seasons of Cheers single-handedly for
this site, I find myself once gain reviewing number four, suddenly in an
unenviable position, one I never imagined I would ever find myself in...running
out of good things to say about Cheers. Or, at the very least,
non-redundant things.

Luckily, I can go out with a bang here. Season Five is the best season of
the show, hands down.

Bang.

Facts of the Case

Sam: "I'm kinda worried that Diane may get hurt." Frasier:
"My God, Sam, that's very noble of you." Sam: "No, I mean,
I had a dream last night that I killed her. And it felt really good."

Paramount keeps up its brisk DVD release schedule with Cheers: The
Complete Fifth Season, a four-disc set containing all 26 episodes:

* Simon Says * The Godfather, Part III * Norm's First Hurrah * Cheers: The Motion Picture * A House Is Not A Home * I Do And
Adieu

The Evidence

Sam: "Due to our desire to be conjoined, Diane and I would like you to
celebrate with us by toasting our nuptials." Woody:
"...Ouch."

Season Five. This is the golden season, the brilliant season, the season
where every element becomes incredibly cohesive, well-oiled, perfectly executed,
and flawless. Jokes are perfectly timed, the cast is lucid and relaxed with one
another, and everything just works on such a profound level that it could make a
cynical, jaded sitcom writer weep. Season Five also marks the last season of
Diane (Shelley Long), which, in my mind, marks the end of the best episodes of
Cheers. Everything past Season Six features Kirstie Alley, who admittedly
goes a good job with the material available, but the show never felt quite the
same to me. It is a credit to the disturbing longevity of the show that it
managed to stay consistently funny for...hell, until the very last episode, but
the best episodes were in the first five years.

I raved about Season Four, and if there was a season that might actually be
better, it would be it; but Season Five edges it out in the end, at least in my
eyes. We have Frasier (Kelsey Grammar, Frasier) who has integrated
himself as key member of the bar gang, graduating from the ranks of walk-in
filler to fully functioning, bitterly analytical cast member. All hands have
embraced Woody (Woody Harrelson, Natural Born Killers from the get-go,
filling in the shoes of the departed Coach with even more naïvety and
sweetness than his forebear, which is hard to even imagine. Lilith (Bebe
Neuwirth, Law & Order: Trial by Jury) even starts appearing more
regularly; her one-shot appearance in the last season proving so popular that
the show's producers decided to make her a semi-regular character, moving her in
with the good doctor, the perfect ying to Dr. Crane's yang. (And yes, I typed
that sentence just to use the expression "Dr. Crane's yang." Sue
me...Don't, actually.)

In all honesty, Frasier and Lilith's fledgling relationship, in of itself,
could carry the entire season of the show alone; the intensely
analytical-slash-animalistic relationship between the two psychiatrists laid all
the deep emotional baggage for Frasier's ultimate spin-off into infamy (and my
all-time favorite Cheers episode, which I will go into more later.)
Luckily, Sam and Diane manage to keep pace with the on-again, off-again marriage
proposal; Diane initially rejects Sam, then tries vehemently to convince him to
re-pop the question. Admittedly, it gets slightly silly between the two of them,
compared to previous seasons of romantic tension, but the heartbreaking
departure of Diane at the end of the season more than makes up for the
lighthearted fare.

Two of my all-time favorite episodes appear this season: "Cheers: the
Motion Picture" and "Dinner at Eight-ish." The former involves
Diane making a movie about Woody's life at Cheers to convince his parents to let
him stay in Boston, which becomes so avant-garde and hilariously pretentious
("derivative of Godard," says Woody's father); and the latter involves
Frasier and Lilith inviting Sam and Diane over to their new apartment for a
nice, pleasant dinner...until Lilith finds out that Sam and Frasier used to be
engaged, a fact Frasier conveniently failed to mention. I cannot claim that I
have seen every single episode of Cheers, since I occasionally do things
like go outside, have a job, and maintain relationships with the opposite sex;
but I can say with all certainty that, out of the absurdly large number of
episodes I have seen, that these are the best, hands down. This DVD set is worth
buying simply for these fine episodes alone, and I cannot properly articulate
how happy I am to retire my ratty VHS tape of syndicated reruns from 15 years
ago, especially since I threw away my VHS player last year.

Cheers: The Complete Fifth Season boasts comparable audio and visual
presentations as the previous seasons, with excellent sharpness, decent black
levels, and the earth-tone color scheme that popularized the look of the show
reproduced faithfully on DVD. I actually felt that the quality took a slight
dive in Season Five in terms of visual quality, but this may simply be due to
the fact that the source material is slightly more damaged and grainy. Why, I
have no idea. Edges get slightly jagged and aliased more frequently than
previous seasons as well, but overall, the show still looks great considering
its age. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround track is totally functional, rarely
required to reproduce anything more exciting than the dialogue (nice and tight
in the center) and the yuks of the studio audience, pumped into the rear
channels. Overall, the presentation is entirely acceptable; lacking zest or
zing, instead opting for meticulous functionality, which does the job just
fine.

As with the previous season, Paramount has kindly provided a "play
all" feature, in merciless exchange for all supplementary material of any
kind. This is at best, a mixed blessing.

The Rebuttal Witnesses

I had to think long, long and hard to find something bad to say about the
most glorious season of Cheers, beyond the normal griping of previous
seasons that never got resolved: lack of subtitles, lack of special material,
and all that crap. I wasted my breath in three reviews complaining about that;
five DVD releases later, and it doesn't seem likely they will ever be addressed.
So I'm moving on.

I came up with something, finally, after many hours of deliberation, taxing
my precognitive abilities as a long-standing Cheers fan. And here it is:
they did not include the fake season finale ending.

At the end of the fifth season, to mask the fact that Shelley Long was
leaving the show, a false alternate ending was shot where Diane and Sam wed
happily. This proved to be a completely useless maneuver on the part of the
studio, since the gossip columns were abuzz with nothing else except Long's
imminent departure for movies (and I cannot help but add a "ha ha" to
that). It was a totally pointless endeavor, as the cat was so out of the bag
that this was like throwing the bag at the cat as it ran off into the
distance.

If this lost episode exists somewhere, it does not exist on this DVD set.
And that is a crying shame. Because now, odds are nobody will ever get to see
it.

Closing Statement

Sam: "Now after everything I just said, do you think that Diane and I
will ever get back together again? Norm: "...Can I have my drink
before I answer?"

Cheers: The Complete Fifth Season will probably be the end of my
Cheers collecting on DVD, and I am okay with that. I feel no need to
continue with the series beyond this point. The following seasons are certainly
full of goodness (the bar wars with Gary's, for example), but for me, all my
good memories are wrapped up in Season Five. It is the best of the best of a
show already beset with 11 seasons of pure goodness.

If you had to buy just one season of Cheers to personify everything
good about the show, this is the one to add to your collection. Carve that in
stone. Then buy it.

The Verdict

A verdict is not even required. Cheers is free to go, along with my
watch. And my wallet.